Interviewed_at_Weehawken

Do people somehow think that wrestling at heavyweight looks like a 125 match? I think that mostly it comes down to recruiting and this would also include recruiting people who are going to stay out of trouble and be able to maintain 125 lbs while wrestling effectively for a good portion of their career. They haven't had this type of guy on their team since Megaludis.

BTW RBY looking pretty lean lately in his 57 kg prep. Almost similar to TJ Dillahaw for his Cejudo fight...

GROWN indeed. And how would 2023 WTT Gilman have done against HWC World silver Gilman?

What is Vito's weight going to look like in March? (The same could be said of Fix.) Look at the NCAA schedule next to the USA Wrestling schedule.

"at this point."

Except for the part about this statement being 100% false, you are absolutely correct. Larry Lee on Spencer's recruiting: You have a son that is one of the top high school recruits in the country– walk us through the END of the decision-making process–It gets narrowed down to a couple of different schools — what happens from there? What role did you and your wife play in the decision–or did you leave it entirely to him? It was important to us that Spencer made his own decision. I’m a spreadsheet type of person, so I helped him do research on each school. I answered questions for him. We looked at academics, majors, graduation rates, rankings, etc. I put every factor he considered into a spreadsheet to refer to after each visit. When he would come home, he would talk, and I would type up notes so that he wouldn’t forget. He quickly narrowed his choices to Penn State and Iowa. I used to go for walks with Spencer, and we would talk about where he was at in the process. Again, to be candid, he waffled more than a few times. Toward the end, he would ask me, “what do you think, where do you think I should go, do you have a favorite?” I would tell him that it’s not my choice; it’s yours. He would often say, “Why won’t you tell me what you think.” I told him that I couldn’t because it has to be his decision. I do want to say that he was under so much pressure to pick Penn State. He heard it from his teachers, classmates, neighbors, etc. Coach Sanderson was relentless as well. Because Penn State was so close, Spencer visited the campus six times during the process. He visited Iowa three times. The Penn State staff often found their way to his school or Young Gun workouts to observe or to be a presence. Once, when Spencer visited Penn State, he walked into the practice room and found every athlete on the team, including the coaches, wearing pajama pants in recognition of his visit. As you know, in high school, Spencer always wore pajama pants to warm-up. It was a great move and spoke to how hard Penn State worked to recruit him. Because the rules aren’t what they are now, we paid for each visit to the schools. We wanted Spencer to have full access, so our role was to provide that access and support him as he went through his decision-making process. So obviously we know how the story ended up– and Hawkeye fans are thrilled to say the least- how did it play out– did Spencer come home from practice one day and say– Dad– I’m choosing the Hawkeyes? No one knows this, but he did go back and forth. Every time he would lean one way or the other, I told him to sleep on it and give a little time. He would often come back and say, “I don’t know.” He truly struggled. One day he told me he had made his decision. He said something that I will never forget. I asked, “Which one?” He told me, “Choosing Penn State was the easy decision, but Iowa was the right decision.” I asked him what he meant, and he said, “Going to Penn State would make everyone happy. I love wrestling for the state of PA and I’ve always been a PA boy. I’ve wrestled for the state at every level, Schoolboy, Cadet, Junior, PIAA’s. Penn State has a great team and will be the favorites to win team titles. I know everyone on the Penn State team. I’ve been teammates with a bunch of those guys through Young Guns. I get along with all of them. I’d be closer to home and you guys. It would be so much easier for you to attend my matches. I was a roommate on my first world team with Bo Nickal, on another world team with both Mark Hall and Anthony Cassar. But for me to achieve my long-term goals, I know that Iowa is the right choice even if it’s not as comfortable. Terry and Tom coach each person to their talents and skills. When I visited and watched practices, it was apparent that they are the right coaches for me. I know that for me to have a chance at 4 NCAA titles, and World and Olympic Teams. The easy choice isn’t the right choice. Dad, I’m going to become a Hawkeye.” https://hawkeyewrestlingclub.com/larry-lee/

I know that this used to be the case, but I also know that the IOC has been cutting back on host country allocations. So who knows?

But they didn't, and the reason they didn't was that Spencer felt that Iowa had shown better success amongst lightweights than anywhere else. (Also, Iowa didn't use negative recruiting...)

Yep. Monday, Schultz, etc. weren't exactly pushovers.

BerginC is a person? I thought it was the High School that Suriano and Howard attended?

After taking the job? Sounds like the right thing to say! When I coached against him in HS, he was on Team PA.

Oklahoma is closer to PA than NC?

Yes. They kept his redshirt on after his loss to a well-coached Trepham.

Also "Cael knows what he's doing" (for sure.) It just might not involved Robbie Howard, whom has already retired once.

There was a lot going on there: Joe Russell's injury keeping Dan at home, the ability to still wrestle in D1 for D2 guys, a very strong local wrestling culture and a nearby university... a perfect storm. It is unlikely we would see anything similar today.

Did NHS forget what account he was signed in as?

It actually was close. Having a grip on someone's leg does not prevent you from being taken down or even pinned. There is a picture in the high school rulebook (rule 5-25-1) that illustrates this. Feldman had Catka's leg hooked. He just needed to get his own right knee on the mat beyond reaction time from what I remember. http://owoa.org/pdf files/2016-17RuleBookIillustrations.pdf

Was a fair to middling wrestler on a top 10 D2 team. It was late 80s to early 90s and we actually had D1 national qualifiers. I beat d1 starters and lost to d3 backups lol. I'm not sure if the difference in talent between divisions was as pronounced back then. I wrestled some Greco, made a decent account of myself against some highly ranked guys. Came out of retirement at an open when I was 33. Took 2nd out of 20 ish. Beat some college guys, lost 4-0 to a pretty decent post-collegian. Was whole body sore for over a week AND got staph!

NLWC pays him. Same deal.

I agree. My favorite episode might be the one entirely focused on Real Woods transferring to Iowa after allegedly receiving an offer to go to PSU. Basch sounded angry and disgusted. I'm pretty sure Cenzo's voice cracked a couple times, as he was coaching Stanford. Real had already graduated from Stanford and was offered a "bag." Then the story shifted and PSU was supposedly never in the running. Strangely there were never any similar shows angry about Kerk, Truax, Max Dean, Nagao, etc. This is part of the reason why I would think Basch is what Brands calls a "paid hater" and Mineo isn't even on his radar.

Yianni too!

Balletknownoth ing

I actually heard him tell the story at a clinic in the mid 90s. Both he and Burnett were there, and I lost track of which one said it. Thanks for the reminder, and also the info on the book. I have very good memories of Greg Strobel. When I was coaching high school, my kids used to always go to the Lehigh camp. He took a personal interest in a couple of them. I also used to email him with questions about technique and strategy and he would always respond. Great dude. I'm going to try to find a copy of that book.

Would he be allowed to get an NIL contract and still be employed by WWE? They are extremely protective of merchandising their entertainer name, image, and likenesses. I'm not even sure if full time WWE "athletes' are allowed to manage their own social media.